12,000 pounds -- Seed raked into the soil along roadways and driveways

844 -- Number of volunteers who helped seed

4,000 pounds -- Seeds given away to landowners in the burn area

470 -- Number of acres reseeded

Claire DeLeo, senior plant ecologist at Boulder County's Parks and Open Space department, pointed to the rivulets of straw clinging to the burned hillsides in Fourmile Canyon on Thursday afternoon.

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"You see how it's really patchy?" DeLeo asked the members of the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee who attended a field trip to the burn area. "That's because it blew there."

DeLeo and plant ecologist Erica Christensen gave the committee members a tour of the area burned by the Fourmile Fire last September so they could view the open space department's restoration efforts.

In early April, helicopters began dropping mulch on the worst-burned sections of the steepest slopes. The Parks and Open Space department decided to use two kinds of mulch: agricultural straw mulch; and a heavier wood mulch.

The wood mulch was six times more expensive than the straw mulch, but over the windy Front Range spring, the wood mulch has proven to be much better at staying where it lies.

The straw mulch, however, has taken flight. Now, the straw is lodged against trees, piled up in gulches and tangled in grasses. But that doesn't mean it has no value, DeLeo told committee members.

"It's still there," DeLeo said. "It's still going to provide some erosion control."

Knowing that the wood mulch would be less likely to blow around, the open space department asked the helicopter crews to drop it in areas where flooding or a mudslide could threaten structures that escaped the fire.

The open space department also coordinated a volunteer effort to reseed the burned areas around roads and highways to keep weeds from taking root.

The seeds are now just starting to sprout, thanks to a little help from the recent rain. The blades of grasses are slender and just a couple of inches high.

The native seeds that survived in the fire have also begun to grow, and green clumps are beginning to poke through the mulch.

"It started coming up in April but really started taking off with all this rain," DeLeo said.

After the field trip, committee members met at the County Courthouse for a meeting and voted unanimously to buy two properties in the area burned by the Fourmile Fire for a total of $135,000.

Both properties are at the top of Nancy Mine Road near the place where the fire began, and the houses on both properties were burned to the ground. The landowners asked the county to purchase the land, which totals nearly eight acres.

"Each property is bounded by county-owned land that was bought from the Kraft family in 2002 or by (Bureau of Land Management) land that the county expects to acquire in future years," said Jim Daus, land acquisition staff member for the open space department.

Committee member Lisa Dilling said it makes sense for the county to purchase the two pieces of land.

"Both of these properties are in really steep terrain," she said. "We don't really want people living there or driving up there."

The county commissioners will make the final decision on whether the county should buy the two properties.

Claire DeLeo, left, senior plant ecologist at Boulder County's Parks and Open Space department, describes how reseeding efforts are turning out during a tour of the Fourmile Fire burn area Thursday. With her are members of the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee, from left: Lisa Dilling, Sue Cass and John Nibarger.
(
MARTY CAIVANO
)

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